I recently had a guest post on the WPTavern on lobbying trac tickets, IPTC captions and photography. Check it out.
Foss 300
Great UX, hard demanding but fulfilling work. NOTHING is ever as easy as it appears.
50 Year Anniversary of “The Maple Leaf”
For a nation that is still quite young in many respects it certainly has had a large number of flags flown over it’s soil. Although I don’t know one that suits it more then our Maple Leaf, Happy 50th Birthday.
Tutoring Ladies Learning Code
I come from a family of teachers. But I never took up the trade myself. While it may not be the highest paid career in the world many people find it completely rewarding.
Sure I train clients on how to use their website and I’ve worked the odd Happiness Bar at a WordCamp, but I had never actually been in a tutoring role.
Some months ago at a SaturHack I met Meredith Underell who runs the Vancouver Chapter of Ladies Learning Code or for short LLC. I thought it was a totally cool project and friends like Mandi Wise and Christine Rondeau have both volunteered as tutors in the past.
I made one wrong assumption about LLC was their tutors were only women. Nope! male tutors are invited to volunteer as well.
So when I heard that LLC was having a Girls Learning to Code and was in need of some volunteer mentors for a HTML / CSS course. I had some time and I decided to sign up and give it a try.
I was a little nervous as what to expect but was warmly welcomed when showed up. I got myself a name tag and sat down next to a girl who was having a little trouble getting started.
Turns out she wanted to make a photography website. Well did I ever pick the right girl to sit next to. I was a photographer for 7 years before I switched to web design and I have built a few photography websites in my day.
The hot topic of website creation was Minecraft but also cats, grumpy or other wise, dogs, fashion tips and bagels!
Clio ( Legal Case Management Software for Law Firms Tech as a service ) provided the location, bandwidth and a wonderful lunch. ( Along with a couple beers with the fellow tutors after our apt pupils left for the day. )
Just before we broke for lunch one of the tutors overhead a girl saying.
“I don’t want to have lunch, I am still coding”
We’ve all been there. Trust me.
I also met a number of developers from the wider Vancouver Tech Community. Great networking time at lunch and over beers afterwards.
The girls used Mozilla Thimble code editor which gives real time updates of their code.
I’d highly suggest any developer sign up for a Saturday of this. It was fun, lite, easy, rewarding and filled me full of good karma.
The Real Bansky is not Banksy
This guy has been parading around twitter for years as “The Real Bansky”. He until recently still linked to Bansky’s website and posted Banky’s art work as his own claiming we own nothing shared. He is nothing but a “fan” or imposter account and this latest image the imposter claimed as the work of Bansky when it fact it was artist Lucille Clerc.
To set the record straight.
Banksy is not represented by an art gallery, is not on Facebook and has never used Twitter. ~ Banksy
via the only thing he has ever claimed to own… his website. http://banksy.co.uk/faq.asp
Aside
Don’t get me wrong I love a good parody account on twitter as much as the next person. the9oclockgun and BCferrys are some of my personal favorites.
But I absolutely hate Internet hoaxes who are out to miss lead and profiteer from ill gotten gains. I hate when other people take credit for another persons work so I also invite you to check out this awesome podcast from On The Media’s TLDR on the subject.
Davis Bay Sunset
Sunset on the first day of 2015 at the newly renovated Davis Bay Pier in Sechelt BC.
Your site is not a clown car. Decide what is most important and do that. Adding stuff doesn’t fix what’s broken below.
(speaking at WordCamp San Francisco)
Sunshine Coast Art Crawl 2014
I’m sailing around the World… from my computer
Last year I was talking with one of my sailing buddies about the Volvo Ocean Race and he said there was a game that you could play side by side with the real competitors last race.
I kinda forgot about it until the Volvo Ocean Race started in Alicante, Spain over the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend. I was day late but I did start with some 71,000 other players online my user name is CoffeeRob. You don’t see all 71,000 boats on your screen unless you choose the satellite view. But you do see a couple of players around you, ones your about to pass and the virtual leaders of the race.
Your boat, a Volvo Ocean 65, is exactly like the ones the real competitors are racing and you can upgrade your basic two sails to an extra 5 pro sails (It’s a paid upgrade by well worth it). Your sailing using real weather data, the same the competitors use. Which means their isn’t any other crew to sail your boat while your asleep! The map interface shows you your heading and trajectory with current wind conditions which helps you plot your course. You can upgrade and use the auto pilot which has a bunch of options available.
The fun thing I find about this game is that it’s all strategy and you don’t need to constantly watch your boat. You set you course and go about your day. Check in at lunch or your afternoon coffee break make sure you haven’t run aground.
I have also found a couple other Canadians (Including WhiteWings who is in the leading group) that are racing and you can tag friends and/or competitors you have made keep track of them as you progress.
It’s been great fun so far. I just never though I would go to be worried about my virtual boat running aground as I sleep.
See you in Gothenburg, Sweden in June, 2015.
Update January 18th : Their are now some 170,000 players in the game. Not all of them actually complete the stage. But you can watch an amazing time lapse by Andreas Heydecke of the second stage below.